On the nature of evolutionary explanations
A critical appraisal of Walter Bock’s approach with a new revised proposal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12028734 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marcelo Domingos de Santis (0000-0003-4949-6433, Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3-3 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History & Philosophy of the Life Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0391-9714 • E-ISSN: 1742-6316 |
| Publisher | Springer Nature (PUBLISHER • SG) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s40656-023-00601-7 |
| PMID | 38190055 |
| OpenAlex | W4390673670 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 95 |
Walter Bock was committed to developing a framework for evolutionary biology. Bock repeatedly discussed how evolutionary explanations should be considered within the realm of Hempel's deductive-nomological model of scientific explanations. Explanation in evolution would then consist of functional and evolutionary explanations, and within the latter, an explanation can be of nomological-deductive and historical narrative explanations. Thus, a complete evolutionary explanation should include, first, a deductive functional analysis, and then proceed through nomological and historical evolutionary explanations. However, I will argue that his views on the deductive proprieties of functional analysis and the deductive-nomological parts of evolution fail because of the nature of evolution, which contains a historical element that the logic of deduction and Hempel's converting law model do not compass. Conversely, Bock's historical approach gives a critical consideration of the historical narrative element of evolutionary explanation, which is fundamental to the methodology of the historical nature of evolutionary theory. Herein, I will expand and discuss a modern view of evolutionary explanations of traits that includes the currentacknowledgement of the differences between experimental and the historical sciences, including the token and type event dichotomy, that mutually illuminate each other in order to give us a well confirmed and coherent hypothesis for evolutionary explanations. Within this framework, I will argue that the duality of evolutionary explanations is related to two components of character evolution: origin, with its evolutionary pathways along with the history, and maintenance, the function (mainly a current function) for the character being selected
Biology · Epistemology · Evolutionary biology · Evolutionary ecology · Evolutionary neuroscience · Function (biology · Narrative · Philosophy of biology · Philosophy of science · Realm · Scientific theory · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · History · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Plant and animal studies
How the Laws of Physics Lie
Making Things Happen
What Biological Functions Are and Why They Matter
Science as a Process
Rock, Bone, and Ruin
The teleological notion of ‘function’
Exaptation—a Missing Term in the Science of Form
Cause and Effect in Biology
The Logic of Scientific Discovery
The proper role of history in evolutionary explanations
Natural Selection
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory
Explanations for adaptations, just‐so stories, and limitations on evidence in evolutionary biology
What are narratives good for
Narratives, mechanisms and progress in historical science
Footnotes on the Philosophy of Biology
Does Biology Have Laws? The Experimental Evidence
Methodological and Epistemic Differences between Historical Science and Experimental Science
Prediction and Explanation in Historical Natural Science
Reconstructing the Past
Laws of Biology, Laws of Nature
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |